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One year after the Bush administration promised to streamline a process to allow people with HIV infection to visit the United States despite a congressionally mandated travel ban, critics are saying that the proposed new rules are more restrictive than the old ones.

I see the HIV Medicine Association pitched in with a last minute broadside:

Bush Proposal for HIV-positive Visitors Makes a Bad Rule Worse

The Bush administration's proposed rule for waivers allowing some people with HIV to visit the United States is even more restrictive, burdensome, and arbitrary than the rule it is intended to replace, according to the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA). Furthermore, it does nothing to address a fundamental flaw in U.S. policy barring people with HIV from entering the United States.

"The law denying entry to people with HIV has no basis in science or public health and should be repealed," said HIVMA Chair Arlene Bardeguez, MD, MPH, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. People with HIV have been barred from entering the United States since 1990, despite the fact that HIV infection is a manageable condition that is not transmitted through casual contact. Individual exceptions for short visits may be granted on a case-by-case basis, but only through an intrusive, stigmatizing, and unscientific waiver process.